Venerable Frahât, the Sage of Persia

An icon of Mâr ’Afrâm, Mâr ’Ishâq and Saint Frahât

Today in the Orthodox Church we commemorate a Syriac saint of Iranian heritage, Saint Frahât the Sage. A survivor of the persecutions of Šâpur II and a contemporary of Mâr ’Afrâm, Saint Frahât has occasionally been confused with Mâr Ya‘qûb on account of his having taken the baptismal name of Jacob. He is most notably credited with writing the Demonstrations, an early Syriac Christian work of apologetics which occasionally takes a polemical edge against Judaism – but which is notably influenced by the rabbinical Jewish tradition itself.

Saint Frahât [also Aphrahat, Aphraates or in modern Farsi Farhâd] was born in Assyria or Asôristân, then a province of the Persian Empire, during the reign of Bahrâm II. It is unclear what his parentage was. However, he was probably baptised as an adult, and chose his baptismal name of Jacob at the same time. Frahât was drawn early into a strict form of asceticism, and kept himself celibate – though there was no formal monastic institution at the time, it is clear that he lived in a manner consistent with monastic vows, and probably did so in a præ-cœnobitic community. Syriac Christian communities of this time had such ‘sons of the covenant’ present.

As a proto-monastic in Persia, he witnessed from the other side of the political divide the same suspicions and persecutions that harried his contemporary Mâr ’Afrâm in Nisibis. As a result, he was inexorably drawn into the rhetorical and apologetic disputations that characterised the political atmosphere. Jews were favoured in Persia, and Christians conditionally favoured in Rome. The Persian šâh mistrusted the local Syriac Christians as a potential fifth column, and subjected them to harsh persecutions. During this phase of the wars between Persia and Rome, in the disputed territories there was an active, lively and occasionally vituperative debate and contest for converts between the early Christian and rabbinic Jewish traditions. Frahât was caught right in the middle of this. As his Demonstrations indicate, even as he was most vehemently rejecting the doctrines of Judaism, he was immersed in the Hebrew Scriptures. The Persian Sage’s heavily symbolic and figurative hermeneutics were similar in character to the Babylonian rabbinic method, and he was very clearly influenced by contemporary Jewish teachings, as well as by the philosophical interpretation of the Hebrew Scriptures by Philo Judæus.

Saint Frahât was nevertheless thoroughly partizan. Perhaps a bit ironically given how close he himself was to the Jewish teachings, he would brook no rapprochement with Judaism nor any attempt to remake Christianity in a Judaïsing mould. Frahât took pains to distance the Christian teaching from rabbinic Judaism on matters such as circumcision, the Paschal feast and the keeping of the Sabbath. He also concerned himself with the spiritual strength and health of the Syriac Christian community under Šâpur’s persecution. Particularly notable is his use of apocalyptic in an attempt to comfort and encourage the suffering Christians under Šâpur’s rule. Orthodox tradition has it that he wrote in his later years from Edessa and Antioch.

The Persian Sage reposed in the Lord, probably after the temporary truce which Šâpur signed with Roman Emperor Constantius II following the siege of Singara in the year 344. His Demonstrations were written in a period spanning 337 to 345, with the last one having been written in the wake of the first round of persecutions, and possibly slightly before his death. It is unclear if he ever attained to a hierarchical status, but later attestations witness that he did indeed live the life of a holy ascetic, and that he was held in high esteem by the leaders of the Syrian Church. He is remembered by the Holy Orthodox Church on the twenty-ninth of January. Venerable Frahât, learnèd and wise expositor of the Scriptures, pray unto Christ our God that our souls may be saved!